302 



,F8 B12 



THE SO-CALLED 



" FRANKLIN PRAYER-BOOK." 



BY 



RICHARD MEADE BACHE. 



Reprinted from the '^Pennsylvania Magazine of History and 
Biography'" for July, 1897. 



PHILADELPHIA. 

1897. 



THE SO-CALLED 



"FRANKLIN PRAYER-BOOK." 



BY 

RICHARD MEADE BACHE. 



Beprinted from the " Pennsylvania Magazine of History and 
Biography'' for July, 1897. 



PHILADELPHIA. 

1897. 



THE SO-CALLED " FRANKLIN PRAYER-BOOK." 



The New York Times published, under date of December 
3, 1896, some interesting statements connected with the sale 
in Boston of a copy of the so-called " Franklin Prayer- 
Book." These the present paper supplements with au- 
thentic data that add to the completeness of the record by 
confirming the Times's view of the share that Dr. Franklin 
had in the preparation of the volume, and of its rarity, and 
additionally showing the interest which certain prominent 
persons long subsequently to the publication took in the 
work. The Times said in part, under the heading, " Eare 
Franklin Volume," — 

" Dodd, Mead & Co., of this city, purchased in Boston yesterday a 
rare old volume known as Franklin's Prayer-Book. The purchase was 
made at the auction sale of the library of the late Prof. Henry Reed, of 
the University of Pennsylvania. [The sale was of books of the late 
Judge Henry Reed, a son of Professor Henry Reed's.] The bidding 
for this old book was spirited, and the price paid by Dodd, Mead & Co. 
was $1,250. Joseph Sabin was the underbidder. The volume is bound 
in old red morocco, stamped with gilt, and has gilt edges." 

Here follows a copy of the title-page and a quotation from 
a letter of Franklin's, which matter will appear more appro- 
priately in another place in this account, the article in the 
Times- concluding with the following passage : 

"In a letter written by Jared Sparks to Prof. Reed, dated Cam- 
bridge, Mass., May 30th, 1837, he says : ' Among Franklin's papers I have 
lately found a fragment of the Preface of the said Abridgment of the 
Book of Common Prayer, in his handwriting, and have been puzzling 
myself in vain to find any clue to the book. A learned clergyman could 
give me no light on the subject. It is a very curious affair, as coming 
from Franklin. I doubt if there is another copy in America.' " 

A copy of the original and only edition of this work, 
which lies before me, is in a state of perfect preservation. 
It is printed on substantial paper, as was the fashion of the 
last century, in large type, and, of course, with the quaint 

3 



4 The So-called " Franklin Prayer-Book.'' 

old, long " s" of the period. The binding is of Turkey-red 
morocco, with a stamped gilt vignette around the margins 
of both front and back covers, with corresponding gilt orna- 
mentation on the back, and with gilt-edged leaves. It is 
evidently a copy of the edition lately represented in Boston 
by the exemplar there sold. The particular copy of the 
edition which lies before me has attached to it a special 
interest in the fact that at the top of the inside of the front 
cover appears in faint ink manuscript the words, "Once 
the property of the Immortal Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., 
etc." [Unsigned.] It came into possession of Dr. Thomas 
Hewson Bache, who is still its owner, by gift from Dr. John 
Redmond Coxe, a prominent physician of Philadelphia, who 
had bought it at the sale of Dr. Stuart's library in the same 
city, and on June 5, 1855, insisted upon Dr. Bache's accept- 
ing it, despite his representing to Dr. Coxe that it was on 
every account too valuable a present for him to receive. The 
title-page reads : 

ABRIDGEMENT 

OF 

THE BOOK OF 

Common ^^rajer, 

And Adniiuistration of the 

SACRAMENTS, 

AND OTHER 

Rites and Ceremonies 

OF THE 

OHUEOH, 

According to the use of 

Siljt C^urc| of dSnglanb: 

TOOETHER WITH THE 

PSALTER, or PSALMS 

OF 

DAVID, 

Printed as they are to be sung or said in Churches. 

LONDON : 

Printed in the year MDCCLXXIII. 



The So-called "■ Franklin Prayer-Book." 6 

Growing out of his coming into possession of this copy 
of the so-called " Franklin Prajer-Book," or out of common 
knowledge that he was somewhat versed in antiquarian lore 
relating to Franklin, probably from both causes, Dr. Bache 
was, not long after he received the book, applied to for in- 
formation regarding the work by the Right Reverend Wil- 
liam Bacon Stevens, Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, 
in the following letter : 

" 913 Clinton St., Thursday. 
[Without date, but the reply indicates it.] 

"My dear Sir: 

"I have been so fortunate as to secure acopy of the Franklin Pr. Bk., 
which I received in my last invoice of English books. In nearly all re- 
spects, except the binding, it is as good as the one I saw at your house. 
On the title-page is written the following note: 'This abridgement, to- 
gether with the preface, was drawn up by Sir Francis Dashwood, Bart., 
Baron Le Dispencer, [Despencer] and given by him to Lord Mount 
Stuart, in 1775. The book was printed in a private press of his own at 
West Wycombe, Bucks.' 

" I showed the book to Mr. McAllister, who has, as you know, a large 
collection of Prayer Books, but he had never seen or heard of it. My 
object in writing to you is, first, to thank you for your note, and sec- 
ondly, to ask that you will do me the favor to give me the true hi.story 
of the book so far as it may be in your power, as the facts connected 
with it must be particularly interesting." 

Under date of July 7, 1859, and in Philadelphia, Dr. 
Bache answered this letter of Bishop Stevens's, as follows : 

" I have much pleasure in giving you all the particulars I know con- 
cerning the ' Abridgement of the Book of Common Prayer,' but, whether 
they form its true history, it is impossible for me to tell. 

" The first copy I ever saw is in the possession of Mrs. Henry Reed, 
and formerly in that of her grandfather, Bishop White. [Mrs. Henry 
Keed was the wife of Professor Eeed, mentioned in the preceding quota- 
tion from the New York Times, and Bishop White was the well-known 
Bishop William White of colonial and later times.] It is in all respects, 
even in binding, like my own. On the fly-leaf of it you will find the 
following : 

" ' This book was presented to me in ye year 1785, while ye Liturgy 
was under revision, by Mrs. Sarah Bache, by direction of her father, 
Dr. Benj. Franklin ; who, with Lord Le Despenser, [Despencer] she 
said, were the framers of it. 

W. W.' [William White]. 



(( i 



6 The So-Galled " Franklin Prayer-Book." 

" This copy was seen by Mr. Sparks when writing ' The Works of 
Franklin' (ed. 1840). In Sparks, Vol. I., p. 352, you will find this notice 
of the Abridgment: 'During hjs [Franklin's] absence from London in 
the summer of 1773, he passed a few weeks at the country residence of 
Lord Le Despencer, and employed himself whilst there in abridging 
some parts of the Book of Common Prayer. A handsome edition of this 
abridgment was printed by Wilkie, in St. Paul's Church Yard ; but it 
seems never to have been adopted in any Church, nor to have gained 
much notice.' 

" Sparks then gives a quotation from the last part of the Preface of 
the Abridgment, which does not exactly correspond with that in the 
printed copy ; for the words, ' remove animosity' are used by Sparks, 
instead of ' increase unanimity.' I have heard that Mr, Sparks first 
found the MS. of the Preface in Franklin's handwriting, which led to 
his discovering Mrs. Reed's copy. The slight change in phraseology 
above mentioned may have been made in the proof by Franklin. 

" In Vol. X., pp. 206-7, of Sparks, you will find a letter of Franklin 
to Granville Sharp, dated Passy, 5th July, 1785, which contains the fol- 
lowing : ' The Liturgy you mention was an abridgment of that made 
by a noble Lord of ray acquaintance, who requested me to assist him by 
taking the rest of the book ; viz., the Catechism and the reading and 
singing Psalms. These I abridged by retaining of the Catechism only 
the two questions, What is your duty to God ? What is your duty to 
your neighbour? with answers. The Psalms were much contracted by 
leaving out the repetitions (of which I found more than I could have 
imagined) and the imprecations, which appeared not to suit well with 
the Christian doctrine of forgiveness of injuries and doing good to ene- 
mies. The book was printed for Wilkie, in St. Paul's Churchyard, but 
never much noticed. Some were given away, very few sold, and I sup- 
pose the bulk became waste-paper. In the prayers so much was re- 
trenched that approbation could hardly be expected ; but I think with 
you, a moderate abridgment might not only be useful, but generally 
acceptable.' 

" The editor then introduces, in a note, a portion of Mr. Sharp's letter 
which called forth Franklin's account of the book, as also the Preface 
of the Abridgment, in full. 

" There can be no doubt that Sir Francis Dashwood, Bart., Lord Le 
Despencer, had a hand in compiling the work, and probably paid the 
expense of the undertaking, for it is not likely Franklin did. 

"I doubt whether the book was printed by a private press at West 
Wycombe, Bucks ; for Franklin's letter [to Granville Sharp] contradicts 
this statement, and if Sir Francis had a private press, we should have 
had other works, in all probability, emanating from it, and of such I have 
never heard. 

"In Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual, Vol. III., p. 1494, under the 



The So-called "Franklin Prayer- Book." 7 

head of Prayer, you will find the following notice of the book: 'An 
abridgment of The Book of Common Prayer, West Wycombe, 1773, 
8vo. The performance of Sir Francis Dashwood, Bart., privately printed 
at the expense of Lord Le Despencer.' In the above no mention is 
made of a private press ; hence another reason for not believing Sir 
Francis had one. 

" Lowndes gives the impression [that] Sir Francis Dashwood and Lord 
Le Despencer were different individuals. This is a mistake, however, 
for Sir Francis Dashwood was Lord Le Despencer from 1763 to 1781 
(Burke's Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire, sixteenth 
ed., p. 597), and the Abridgment was printed in 1773. 

" I have heard that a copy was sold in London some years ago ; and 
the following manuscript note in Mrs. Henry Reed's copy I conclude 
refers to the sale : ' J. Miller's Catalogue II, March 16th, 1850, No. 68.' 

" It may be interesting to mention : The statue of William Penn, 
which now stands on the Pine Street front of the Pennsylvania Hospital, 
was originally the property of Sir Francis Dashwood, and stood in West 
Wycombe Park. His successor did not admire Penn, and sold the statue 
for its value as lead, and it was found in a London junk-shop by a descend- 
ant of the founder of Pennsylvania, who bought it and presented it to 
the Hospital." 

The statue of William Penn referred to in the concluding 
lines of the preceding letter still stands in Philadelphia on 
its pedestal before the Pennsylvania Hospital, on the broad 
lawn in front of the institution, facing Pine Street. And, 
by way of imparting an additional touch of local color to 
some of the facts mentioned here, it is added that Edward 
Duffield was a very intimate friend of Dr. Franklin's (a 
clock of his own make, a gift of his to Franklin, is now in 
my possession), and he was one of Franklin's executors ; and 
that a son of Dr. John Redmond Coxe, Dr. Edward Jenner 
Coxe, was, as an infant, the first person vaccinated in the 
United States, and with lymph which his father had received 
directly from Dr. Jenner. 

The editor of the Preface to the edition of the so-called 
" Franklin Prayer-Book" " professes himself," to use his 
own words, '• to be a Protestant of the Church of England," 
and begins his duties as such with a few deprecatory remarks 
as to laymen presuming to make suggestions of alteration 
in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. 



8 The So-called " Franklin Prayer-Book." 

He presents to the consideration of " the serious and dis- 
cerning" amendments which the authors regard as involv- 
ing improvements in the accepted Liturgy of the Church. 
He takes the ground that both morning and evening services 
of the Church are so long that in them " the mind wanders, 
and the fervency of devotion is slackened." He cites the 
example of the Lord's Prayer and its accompanying admo- 
nition against the " heathen" practice of " much speaking" 
as confirmatory of the excellence of brevity in religious 
worship. He says that the old would, on account of their 
infirmities, be benefited by a shortening of divine service, 
and that the young would more cheerfully than now attend it. 
Moreover, he adds, business people could more easily than 
now attend it on other days than Sunday. He does not con- 
sider the use of more than one creed as any advantage to 
edification, whilst the existing repetitions involve much pro- 
lixity. The Psalms are held to consist in a measure of repe- 
titions which may well call for curtailment. Some of them, 
moreover, it is represented, contain bitter imprecations 
against enemies, and are thus inconsistent with the spirit of 
Christianity and the direct teachings of the Gospel. The 
curtailment of the Communion Service, as it appears in the 
volume, is believed by its authors to omit nothing that is 
" material and necessary." With the view of accommo- 
dating the introduction of the Baptismal Rite to the interests 
of a congregation engaged in worship, it is proposed to 
omit in it on such occasions " the less material parts" of the 
formulary. The Catechism being a compendium repre- 
senting weighty matter upon which theologians have written 
tomes in elucidation, it obviously is not, the Preface states, 
as well adapted to the infant mind as is desirable. It is 
therefore recommended that only those parts within the 
comprehension of the very young be retained, and that the 
remainder be postponed until they shall have reached a 
period of more ripened understanding. The ceremony of 
Confirmation might, it is thought, be judiciously shortened. 
" The Commination," the Preface goes on to say, " and all 
cursing of mankind is (we think) best omitted in this 



The So-called " Franklin Prayer-Book." 9 

Abridgement." The form of the marriage ceremony, often 
abbreviated at the discretion of the officiating clergyman, is 
here, it says, retained only as to what are deemed its " ma- 
terial parts." The long prayers on the occasions of the 
visitation of the sick do not seem to the authors appro- 
priate in the presence of persons " very weak, and in dis- 
tress." The service at the burial of the dead does not, in 
their view, evidence sufficient regard for the health and wel- 
fare of the living, in that it is, under certain circumstances, 
highly dangerous to them, owing to the length of time 
to which they are often exposed with uncovered heads to 
cold at the side of the grave. Finally, the ceremony of the 
Churching of Women might, they think, be judiciously 
abridged. 

Here the recommendations of the Preface, embodied in 
the book, casually touching upon the desirability of substi- 
tuting some other source of church revenue for tithes, end 
with a protest against any supposition that irreverence is 
intended by the suggestions made towards the modification 
of a Liturgy which the authors admire, declaring that the 
object sought is merely to improve it in the interests of 
religion, in the belief, as they say, that "this shortened 
method, or one of the same kind better executed, would 
further religion, increase unanimity, and occasion a more 
frequent attendance on the worship of God." 

In the opinion of persons more competent than the present 
writer to sit in judgment on the case, the work seems to 
bave had some influence " in ye year 1785, while ye Liturgy 
was under revision" with the purpose of producing the first 
Book of Common Prayer of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church of the United States, in leading to the omission of 
certain passages in the Book of Common Prayer of the 
Church of England; since restored, apparently from the 
prompting among portions of mankind to cling to ancient 
things as such, regardless of their unsuitability to advanced 
thought on the subject, and in this case with the very features 
which Franklin most deprecated, as attempting to blend 
teachings of the Old Dispensation with those of the New 



10 The So-called "Franklin Prayer-Booh." 

Dispensation, with which they are incompatible and by 
which they have been superseded. 

Whatever may be the state of the case now, the idea as 
to the existence of many redundancies in the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer of the Church of England must at one time 
have been very prevalent, as the two following citations show. 
Miss Jane Austen, the daughter of a clergyman, makes 
one of her middle-class characters in " Mansfield Park," 
published in 1814, say that " our Liturgy has beauties 
which not even a careless, slovenly style of reading can 
destroy ; but it has also redundancies and repetitions which 
require good reading not to be felt." Again, Mr. W. E. 
Gladstone, in a late letter of his from Hawarden to a friend, 
under date of September 9, 1896, afterwards published in 
The Academy and then in The London Times, says, among 
other things relating to his collection of books, — 

" As quantity has been my strongest point, I may without offence refer 
to it in comparison with quality. An able and learned person of our 
day bought for his own use twenty thousand volumes. They were ex- 
amined and valued for sale (which never came off) in London, and it 
was predicted that he would net from them £8000, or a little over two 
shillings a volume. Nearly at the same time a library of somewhat over 
half the quantity, but rich in rarities, brought (not at auction) about £6 
a volume. 

"Though, as I have said, a beggarly collector, I have had a few 
specialities. One I will mention. I accumulated more than thirty dis- 
tinct rifacciamenti of the Book of Common Prayer. Many of these had 
prefaces which commonly ran to this effect : — ' The Prayer Book is excel- 
lent. But it has some blemishes. Let them be removed, and it will find 
universal acceptance. Accordingly I have performed this operation ; 
and I now give the Reformed Prayer Book to the world.' But I have 
never obtained, and have never seen, a second edition of any one of these 
productions. I greatly doubt whether they have usually paid their 
printer's bills." 

The last statement is not astonishing to any one who 
knows that there are still in existence Bishops of the Angli- 
can Church who vehemently oppose striking from the statute 
book the law, repugnant to common sense, interdicting 
marriage with a deceased wife's sister. 



The So-called "Franklin Prayer-Book." 11 

It will be remembered tbat Dr. Bache said, in his letter to 
Bishop Stevens, by way of explaining how the words " re- 
move animosity," in the Franklin manuscript which Sparks 
saw, came to be changed to " increase unanimity" in the 
printed prayer-book, that the alteration may have been 
made in the proof by Franklin. The present commentator, 
however, has not the slightest doubt that the alteration was 
made by Franklin personally. It is an unmistakable touch 
of the hand of Franklin in a direction of part of his art of 
success in life, known to his various biographers ; of course, 
perceptible, it must be believed, even to his most casual 
readers, but never heretofore sufficiently emphasized, al- 
though it appears continuously in active operation through- 
out his whole varied career, and is expressly indicated in his 
autobiography as the wisest of policies in intercourse with 
men. This was, in brief, smoothing the way of reason to 
the mind by sweeping unessentials from the path by means 
of conciliatory word and deed. There is not a fragment 
extant of his authentic speech, writing, and action in which 
the exhibition of this mental attribute is not present. 
Although the Preface which is here noticed is, with slight 
exception, written in the first person plural, it is so Frank- 
linian that no person familiar with the turn of thought and 
phrase of Franklin, than which no other style was ever more 
informed from outmost to inmost core with personality, can 
doubt the authorship of it in its entirety. Comparison of it 
with any of his writings touching ethical matter will prove 
that in it the family likeness to them is unmistakable. Part 
of it being found in his handwriting by Mr. Sparks is, in 
the existing case of collaboration, only proof presumptive 
that he was its author, but the man revealed in the style is 
proof positive of the fact. 

The Preface can be seen, even through the medium of 
the paraphrased abstract here given, to be imbued with this 
quality omnipresent with Franklin. Nor did the character- 
istic exemplified by it and his other utterances originate in 
a cold-blooded policy, adopted for the sake of gaining his 
ends in the interest of increase of authority and power. 



12 The So-called '' Franklin Prayer-Booh." 

Regard for these, it would seem, never gained access to his 
mind. They came unsought, as the natural adjuncts of his 
personality working amidst conditions fitted to its supreme 
development. Perhaps the particular trait which is here 
mentioned would be best illustrated as to its significance in 
his life by a legitimate comparison which involves a marked 
contrast. Lord Chesterfield, who was born twelve years 
before Franklin and died seventeen years before him, es- 
sentially his contemporary, also followed in life the same 
policy as Franklin's in his intercourse with the world, 
socially with great success, and politically with marked 
ability in the diplomatic sphere, most notably as Lord-Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland. Yet his whole career as observed, and 
as known by his own confession in the posthumous publica- 
tion of his letters to his son, proves that his speech and 
action were invariably, in every particular, prompted by the 
most subtle and refined egoism. The whole public and 
private career of Franklin, on the contrary, although super- 
ficially exhibiting the same aspect as Chesterfield's inter- 
course with the world, was inspired by the loftiest altru- 
ism. Both acted in consonance with the maxim, suaviter in 
modojfortiter in re, Chesterfield expressly recommending that 
course in his letters to his son. But what a difference be- 
tween the two men there was, in the presence in one ot 
worthy fundamental motive in conduct, and the absence of 
it in the other ! This is not the place to recite the services 
of Franklin to his country, but it may be said at least, even 
here, that his life in its service was one of continuous labor 
and self-denial. Even after he returned from France, old, 
decrepit, longing for a brief respite from work before he 
died, he found himself enmeshed again in the toils of duty, 
and yielded to the popular demand for his final devotion to 
the public interests. Well may Jefiferson have said, as he is 
reported to have replied, when the Count de Vergennes, 
France's Minister of Foreign AflPairs, greeted him as the 
ambassador come to replace Franklin at the Court of Louis 
XVI., " I succeed; no one can replace him." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

011 769 887 7^ 



